Tracking the musings of joshp

September 27, 2005

I like to try and practice “lateral thinking” when I encounter a problem. It seems obvious to me that the commonly held position on how to solve a problem is almost never right, since if it was, the problem would likely already be solved. So I’m a big believer of trying to see a problem from a different perspective, rather than recycling the received wisdom.

So over the last few weeks of thinking about transit in Seattle, I’ve been challenging myself to think: “Is there really a problem with transportation in Seattle and if so, what is it?”

This isn’t a rant – I’ll just share my mental experiences so far:

1. Like many problems, when I focused on it for a bit, I found I didn’t really think it was that bad of a problem. For all the expense of the solutions, I’m starting to think the problem is being overblown. In a lot of cases, doing nothing may be a better solution than doing something expensive and ineffective.

2. Walking and cycling are really nice ways to get around. It would be even nicer if you could walk and ride on paths without cars going past. Why not take every 4th street in Seattle neighborhoods and close it to traffic, reclaim the street as a pedestrian/cyclist boulevard. And how about getting more sidewalks in the city, once you look, it is amazing how many parts of town lack sidewalks.

3. Isn’t the problem too many cars? Shouldn’t any solution basically look to eliminate the use of cars by single drivers as a means of getting around the city. I think a lot of good ideas could come from gypsy cab services that pick up multiple passengers, bus stops that tell you when the next bus is coming, and entertainment and perks on transit (free newspapers in the morning, a cocktail and stand up comedy on the way home). What if all the flexcars were jaguars?

4. People have unreasonable expectations. How long should it take to get from Seward Park to Ballard? It’s over 10 miles. Is it reasonable to want to get there faster than 20 miles per hour? No. So plan on a half hour trip.

5. Going to a farmer’s market rules.

Try the experiment of cataloging your traffic woes. My bet is that the problem isn’t as bad as a lot of the rhetoric around the problem.

September 23, 2005

The city council just joined the mayor in pulling the plug on the monorail. It was a unanimous vote.

Does it matter to voters that 4 public votes said “build the monorail” and the city council did little to nothing to make it so. The City was charging the monorail fees for the use of Seattle Center as well as millions in sales tax, while funding Sound Transit to the tune of $50 Million.

“I think it’s a sad day for not just the monorail supporters, but for all mass transit supporters in the city,” Councilman Nick Licata told The Associated Press. “I would have loved to see the monorail succeed.” He just wasn’t willing to fight for it – and caved into the forces of regionalism. Licata said he hopes a regional transit authority can be formed to pay for some other mass transportation project.

“It was a great dream, but the facts are in, and it’s time to stop the squandering of millions on pie-in-the-sky projections. It’s over,” Councilman Richard McIver said in a statement the council released after the vote.

Here’s how I see the interplay of Seattle’s traffic woes and the surrounding region. Cities are built through human action, dedication, and human ingenuity. Great cities require great effort. Cities literally defy nature. We carve out these cities from their natural surroundings. Walls have forever demarcated the boundaries of cities, and even without walls, our cities have edges where the human effort dissipates and the built city stops. But at the edges of the city, human habitation continues. There have always been those who live outside the city walls: shut out in slums, separated by vocation, removed by culture. The city attracts people with it’s economic, cultural, and defensive benefits. The wall separates those who gain access to those benefits and those who are excluded.

In the modern city, suburbs have grown up around cities as a means to enjoy the economic or cultural benefits of the city without contributing to the tax base. Land use laws in suburbs effectively protect against city “problems” (like density, multi-family housing, crowded schools, mass transit), but the suburbs remain close enough to the urban core to provide jobs, culture, and human conviviality.

The only great transportation solution for any city is a urban transportation system. Any regional transportation system that dissipates the benefits of the city outside its borders will only further the dissipation of the city’s energy. Seattle should build a transportation solution for Seattlites. The choked roads in and out of the city are a tribute to the attractions of Seattle. Gridlock outside the city gives commuters the time to contemplate why they live and work where they do. The transportation system we build within Seattle should be a monument to our city’s character and ambitions, not another way to allow suburbs to siphon the dynamism of Seattle.

Great cities have always stood apart from their surroundings and endowed their citizens with gifts that set them apart from other cities. We do not need to solve the region’s transportation problems to solve Seattle’s transportation problems. We need Seattlites to use all our creativity and ingenuity to solve them for ourselves. It’s the only way we’ll find a great solution. Is it any surprise that those lining up against the monorail are preaching solutions that focus on regionalism or look to the state legislature as the ultimate determiner of what sort of transportation the city ought to have? We’ve seen this before – it’s how we got 2 stadiums built side by side through regional fiat over the objections of our city’s voters.

Until Seattle stands on its own, mentally, fiscally, aesthetically, we’ll be enervated with mediocrity and governed from afar.

September 21, 2005

It’s been a decade since I was there but this bar and cafe was one of my favorite places to hole up with a book in the center of town, enjoy the people watching and have a coffee or a beer. The food wasn’t bad either.

I’d love to hear an update from someone who has seen it more recently.

September 19, 2005

I think Seattle voters should place a measure on the fall ballot to suspend the Mayor’s use of the city streets and sidewalks until he begins to show leadership on transportation issues rather than engage in political posturing. Here’s a guy who loves the symbolic transportation projects no matter what the cost, be it the West Seattle water taxi or Paul Alley street car. But when it comes to serious transportation solutions, he’s all posture and no solutions. How much is that viaduct replacement going to cost? And he’s talking trash about the monorail?

I’m a former Nickles fan, turned off by this guy’s temper tantrums. I say Seattle voters tear up the agreement between the city and the Mayor to make use of right of way until he gets to work on real solutions. How about a plan to add sidewalks to all the city’s neighborhoods within the next 10 years? How about a cease fire in the Ron Sims/Greg Nickels/Dwight Pelz pissing match over the Monorail?

We don’t ask that much of our elected officials. Maybe we ought to ask more consistently for solutions, not polemics.

September 07, 2005

The silly Seattle City Council has unanimously passed an ordinance which will place an "advisory" item on the Fall ballot asking Seattle voters to endorse the principle that everyone in the U.S. should have "the right to health care of equal high quality." This will likely lead to the sort of direct action Seattle voters appreciate - similar to the end of the war in Iraq, the liberation of Tibet and the elimination of dams in Eastern Washington. Our council kicks ass when it comes to big policy issues - just don't ask them to solve a transportation issue (or even provide sidewalks in Seattle's neighborhoods).

I'm not sure where we got this right to health care of equal high quality, but if we are reaching into the grab bag of social goods and asking the government to be the single payer, I can think of some better freebies than healthcare. Why not a right to food of equal high quality. I want to eat the way Tom Douglas eats! I think we'd all need less healthcare if we all had an equal right to high quality groceries. We'd live a better healthier life, and with all the money we save on government provided food we could probably afford health insurance, fitness clubs, and elective surgeries.

OK, truthfully, I can't help but think of low quality food I'd rather not eat when I hear that phrase "government provided groceries" - but I'm sure it will be different with healthcare. Right? I mean the city council is full of smart people - they wouldn't back a fundamental right if it wasn't really ours and it wasn't going to be awesome. And anyway, when you are sick, you really need access to health care (that's why it's a "right", right?) it's not like when you are hungry and you need food - that's just tough luck. Right?